


Precious

by inlovewiththeworld



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dark, Gen, Sammath Naur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3822151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewiththeworld/pseuds/inlovewiththeworld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gollum is dead. Frodo has claimed the Ring. And Sam has a choice to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precious

As Frodo continued up the final stretch of road to the heart of the mountain, Sam faced down Gollum, the tip of his blade pointed directly at the creature’s throat. “You aren’t going to stop us now, you nasty thing,” he snarled, puffing with exertion. “I won’t let you. Not when we’re so close.”

The creature prostrated himself on the ground, whimpering and mewling, pleas burbling from his lips. His eyes, wild with terror, flicked from Sam to the gleaming silver blade and back again. He flattened himself further against the broken stones of the path, hands clasped over his head, as if bracing himself for the coming end.

For a moment, pity overcame Sam, and he lowered his sword. But then the cowering creature lifted his gaze from Sam’s weapon to the path Frodo had taken. Just one twitch, just one blink, and the moment was gone—but in that instant, Sam saw the insatiable gleam in Gollum’s eyes, the hunger stronger than any fear of Sam’s blade. If Sam let him go, he would face even the worst terror to answer the Ring’s dark call. Sam knew. How much fear had he endured, how much hunger and exhaustion and pain, to follow his own master here? And he would have faced it all twice over, and thought it nothing.

Sam recognized the look in Gollum’s eyes. He had seen it in his own.

He would not let this wretched animal bring their quest to ruin, not now, not when they had made it within steps of victory. He raised his blade.

He knew what Frodo would tell him. But Frodo had his own task now, was disappearing into the distance even as Sam watched, and Sam knew he wouldn’t look back.

The creature’s shriek echoed eerily off the shadowed slope. Frodo didn’t turn around.

Sam drove the blade through its heart.

Gollum lay still, the blade pinning him to the ground. Sam pulled the weapon free; the creature didn’t move. A hot rush of shame washed over him, although he couldn’t say why. He looked away, his ragged breathing as loud as thunder in the sudden silence.

Bile rose in his throat at the sight of the sticky blood coating the blade. He let the sword fall. One way or another, he wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

He looked up the mountain, along the path where Frodo had gone. He saw no one—the other hobbit had vanished beyond a curve of the path. Sam gave no more thought to the crumpled figure on the ground behind him. His master needed him now. “I’m coming, Mr. Frodo,” he grunted as he forced his exhausted legs forward.

He tried to run, but all his legs would allow him was one plodding step after another. He followed the path, followed his master, until the road ended at a dark mouth waiting to consume him. Heat emanated from the opening, the mountain’s foul breath. Sam took a gulp of air and a step forward.

Darkness swallowed him.

He raised the Phial of Galadriel, but even the light of the elves was powerless here. He walked blindly forward, and forward, and forward, not letting himself slow down, not letting himself imagine evil things reaching for him out of the dark. At last a red glow reached his eyes, as ahead of him the mountain’s molten core burned away the darkness. At the end of the tunnel it bubbled and growled, and belched smoke into the sky above. And standing before the chasm stood a small figure, a dark silhouette against the red of the mountain’s inner fire.

“Frodo!” Sam cried, and raced forward.

Gold flashed as the shadowed hobbit raised the Ring high into the air—

And slipped it onto his finger.

The figure vanished.

“Frodo?” Sam stopped, no longer sure where the small silhouette had stood, no longer sure of what to do.

A tortured cry rose from the empty air, despair and triumph and raw pain, mingled and warped into something otherworldly, as if it were not Frodo he heard but the shrill voice of the Nazgul. Far in the distance, another cry answered.

The figure in front of him was still invisible, but for a moment Sam saw as if through other eyes—a shimmer in the air, a flash of ruptured light. An inferno filled the air before him, rising taller every second, shredding the ravaged spirit it enveloped as the Ring called to its maker. With a yell of defiance, Sam rushed into the flames, into the heart of the storm where the failing light shone. The vision faded, and Sam was left grasping at air—but his arms closed around solid flesh.

Frodo clung to him. “I can’t,” he whispered, his voice raw and halting, as if even forcing those brief words from his lips took impossible strength. “It’s too strong.”

“Don’t let it in,” Sam urged. “Whatever it’s telling you, don’t you listen. You’re stronger than that thing, Mr. Frodo. We did it—we made it all the way here. Just one last step and we can go home.”

Frodo lurched toward the edge of the fiery abyss, one hand clawing blindly at Sam in what might have been an attempt to yank the Ring from his own finger. His movement was aborted as his entire body locked up in a rictus of pain. He howled into the fire, his body rigid in Sam’s arms.

Another echo that wasn’t an echo. Closer this time. Above, dark wings circled.

Frodo crumpled. Sam’s arms caught him before he hit the ground.

Sam couldn’t see the figure in his arms, but he could feel him, his heart fluttering like a bird’s wings, his limbs limp and shaking. As gently as if he held an infant child, Sam lifted his invisible burden, one arm against Frodo’s back, the other behind his knees. Frodo lay still, his head against Sam’s chest, his strength exhausted at last.

Sam took his master’s hand in his. The Ring burned there, malevolent and cold; it made Sam gasp in pain just to touch it. But he tightened his grip, ignoring the fire that blazed through his arm as he tried to tug the cursed thing from Frodo’s finger.

Frodo’s body arched in pain. He let out another eerie cry. The Ring seemed to tighten even as Sam pulled, until it was as if it had merged with the hobbit’s flesh. Frodo gasped for air as his body convulsed, a mere vessel now in the Ring’s struggle to save itself.

Tears of desperation and despair sizzled from Sam’s cheeks in the burning air as he let Frodo’s hand fall.

Another moment, and Frodo lay limp in his arms again. Sweat poured from him to drench Sam’s shirt; each labored breath sounded as if it would be his last. “Help me, Sam,” he gasped. “Help me finish this.”

Sam knew what his master was asking. There would be no separating him from the Ring now, not until the Dark Lord came to claim it. To destroy the Ring, Frodo would have to burn with it.

And Sam would have to be the one to cast them both into the fire.

Sam’s heart constricted in a silent scream that echoed the cries of the Nazgul above. He would have done anything his master asked—anything but this. The quest would fail, here at the final moment, because for all Sam had given up to get them here, the one thing he couldn’t give up was the one for whom he had done it all. “No, Mr. Frodo, no, no, no…” He whispered it like a prayer. The gleam in Gollum’s eyes flickered into his memory. He wondered what someone would see if they were to look into his own eyes now.

Frodo quivered against him. A few scraps of life wrapped in a tattered soul—only scraps, but alive still, _alive_. Warm and bright. Precious.

Despite everything it had taken from him, Frodo had clung to the Ring all the tighter in the end, like Gollum before him. How, then, could Sam be expected to do what his master could not? How could he be expected to destroy that which it would destroy him to lose?

“Sam,” Frodo breathed, a final plea, before the Ring’s power gripped him again and ripped away his voice.

Gollum had made every sacrifice Sam had made and more, to follow his Precious across Middle-Earth. He had given his body, his mind, his soul.

In the end, he had given his life.

If he had known how it would end, would he have counted it worth the cost?

Sam thought he knew the answer.

“I’ve got you,” Sam murmured into Frodo’s hair. “It’s all right, Mr. Frodo. I’ve got you.”

_My Precious._

And he leapt.


End file.
